Tech me out

What happens when scientists mix many elements together instead of just one? In the world of high-entropy materials, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: chaotic combinations can form surprisingly stable and powerful materials. This talk will explore how researchers experiment with these complex mixes, uncover unexpected properties, and why embracing “many ingredients” could lead to the next generation of materials shaping our technology and future.

Air traffic control is a highly-skilled safety-critical task. Project Bluebird, a partnership between NATS, the Alan Turing Institute and the University of Exeter, is exploring the feasibility of using AI agents to perform air traffic control. We will describe some of the technical and human-machine challenges and demonstrate some of the agents in a digital twin of airspace.

Our planet is in crisis, and as scientists, we are in a race against time to find technologies that may help us mitigate or avoid a climate disaster. This can be rechargeable batteries, thermoelectrics, solar cells or new ways to produce clean fuels, but all of these have a critical role to play in our future society. As a theorist, developing new materials and technologies to tackle this is one aspect of our research. In addition, theory can help tackle how to optimise a material or device and often provide critical data to industry and experimentalists as to how to get a device optimised or working.